(Updated) Nick Diaz Back to Old No-Show Tricks, and is Costing UFC Lots of Money

Less than one month ago, Nick Diaz (Pictured) arrived in Canada to host a dreaded “beauty pageant” to promote his UFC 158 blockbuster bout against welterweight king Georges St-Pierre. Diaz was on his best behavior before, during and after the press conference, which led many to believe the 29-year-old had finally turned a new leaf.

Well, as the old adage goes, “Old habits die hard.” According to UFC President Dana White, the UFC’s Countdown crew made the trek to Diaz’s hometown of Stockton, California in order to shoot him for their upcoming documentary. However, Mr. 209 has left them high and dry on three occasions.

Following Saturday’s press conference in England, White was asked how interesting he thought a Nick Diaz video blog would be. White believed it would provide fantastic YouTube entertainment, but nothing nearly as nice as what the UFC’s professional film crew could put together.

“Nick Diaz would be an interesting Countdown show, too, if we could get him to show up for those,” White stated. “Imagine how good his Countdown show would be. If you think his video blog would be great, how about if he had a professionally shot – the best in the business, the best at cutting and producing features on athletes – imagine how [expletive] good that would be. First we’ve got to get him to show up to the [expletive] interviews.

“We’ve had a crew in Stockton for two weeks. When we don’t do an interview, you know how much it costs us? A [expletive] load of money. So we’ve got a [expletive] crew rolling around in Stockton not doing a [expletive] thing. It costs us a lot of money, and we can’t properly sell the fight or Nick Diaz.”

When Diaz skipped back-to-back press conferences in Canada to promote UFC 137, White claimed Diaz cost the company over $15,000 in unused airfare. The controversial grappler was subsequently pulled from the title bout against St-Pierre because of his unwillingness “to play the game” of promoting pay-per-view broadcasts.

Although Diaz appears to have reverted back to his old no-show tricks, White isn’t fazed by his latest antics.

“No,” White responded when asked if he was worried Diaz might pull more significant disappearing acts in the future. “He showed up for the press conference [last month], I knew something was going to go bad somewhere. That’s Nick.”